Many parents at Lydd Primary School in Kent yesterday admitted Mrs Charman had generally been a good headmistress.But they insisted her position had become untenable over her handling of Marcus's fate.Adele Grant, 41, said her ten-year-old daughter Liberty had been left 'psychologically traumatised' and needed counselling after the death.Of Mrs Charman's departure, she added: 'My daughter's pleased. In fact, she's absolutely ecstatic, although some of the pupils are upset because they liked her.'My argument was never with her as a headteacher. It was the way she handled things. What happened was disgusting and barbaric and unfair to the children.'

No, Adele, what happened was educational and with all the welfare regs to follow I very much doubt it was anything other than humane. Your disgust may be real but it's also subjective and therefore irrelevant, as are the feelings of precious daughter. She sounds like she's been properly brainwashed though - well done. But I'd like to invite both of you to come with me some day and watch me shoot a wovely cuddwy kangawoo right in the fucking face as a thank you for helping me understand: the fuss is all because it happened to a fellow sheep.

Actually just done some looking up and seen that this vindictive cow was one of three - count 'em folks, this is a fucking democracy - three parents who disapproved of the fucking majority vote taken by the rest of the kids in the school.

The almost hilarious irony is Adele Grant named her daughter Liberty. My sides would be splitting if I wasn't incandescent with rage at the pretentious bitch.

If anyone feels like starting a Fuckface group calling on Grant to disappear up her own arse as soon as humanly possible so she can see how it fucking feels let me know so I can join.

When did the drippy hippy Lord Summerisle types move into Lydd ? Was there an influx of them during and following Derek Jarman's sojourn at nearby Dungeness ? And if these types were hard core admirers of Derek, I find it hard to believe that many of them would have kids !

I shouldn't laugh, but this has just been posted on one of the facebook threads. To be clear: it's rubbish, pure fantasy, but I couldn't resist sharing the hysterical crescendo:

Imagine your much loved pet was taken and slaughtered! What happened here is one of the worst examples of psychological cruelty I have ever come accross. She went ahead despite the pleas of children, parents members of the public and even celebrities such as Paul O'Grady.

WOAR, thank you for removing my will to live with that news. I wasn't doing anything with it anyway.

Actually I'd already had a look at the Facefuck page they set up first to try to save Marcus the Hotpot and then to, er, well I'm not quite sure what they were doing with it after that. Grieving and consoling each other I think. Anyway, it's full of that kind of stuff and I had a good giggle. Back in October one wrote that she despised bullies (I think the group was attracting some flak from what they called 'Charman Huggers') and is now delighting in the fact that the hated Charman has been driven out of her job. Consistency fail, irony win, eh? I like the one you've found even more though. I'll add it to my ranting if you don't mind.

If you want ranting material, take a deep breath, here is your research base. Do your worst.

The petition was set up by Holly Elvin, a radical vegan and animal rights activist, who turns out to be an 18 year old studying general science somewhere, having been turned down to do vetinarian studies. Maybe they backed off when she said she was an ALF supporter as they have to do dissections and animal keeping in vet school.

Scroll through the petition heading while you are there - it's a scream, so long as you aren't the head teacher.

Holly has been interviewed by the blog Negotiation Is Over which fights for the rights of 'non-human people'. Holly has written on the subject of vaccines for the blog.

If you can bear it, there is a long thread where Holly appears on page 4 (post 106) and defends her support for direct violent action. There is less to wade through than originally because the mods wiped half of it so as not to alarm the security services or put veganism in a terrible light.

@ WOAR - no surprises there. The usual mix of threats, hypocrisy and stupidity. Oh, sorry about your keyboard. I won't mince words, I'm lamb racked with guilt over that. Maybe with a quick wipe you might be able to chop it in for a replacement.

@zadokwho - yes, beggars belief.

'Marcus was brought into a primary school to be part of a school "farm" until the head teacher(Andrea Charman) decided to have Marcus slaughtered so she could raffle off his body to be able to buy pigs so she can show the children where sausages come from!'

Uhm, yes. That's more or less the working definition of what a farm is, you overly sentimental mongtards. If the intention had been to keep the animals the word would not have been 'farm' but 'zoo'. These people really need to harden the fuck up! It was a just a few meals in a fucking pullover for Christ's sake.

Oh, and singularly inappropriate choice of Pink Floyd music. Fancy choosing High Hopes - supposedly about Dave Gilmour himself, who is neither dead nor a sheep - over Sheep from The Animals album. Wonder if they're paying royalties for using it. Should we email the Floyd and ask?

Good grief. If I thought it was a joke, I'd feel better but it appears to be serious. No wonder the country is going to the er, dogs. It makes me wonder if Bin Laden has a point about moral degeneracy.

"That's why intolerant fascists like Adele Grant can get away with hounding good staff out of their jobs."

Good point. A mob can always be thwarted if enough people counter it.

"What kind of a sick, fucked-up monster calls their child 'Liberty'?"

That's an extra special wrinkle on the whole affair, isn't it?

"If you want ranting material, take a deep breath, here is your research base."

Oh, my. That's a rich seam of crazy mixed with sinister...

"'Marcus was brought into a primary school to be part of a school "farm" until the head teacher (Andrea Charman) decided to have Marcus slaughtered so she could raffle off his body to be able to buy pigs so she can show the children where sausages come from!'"

I haven't seen many lamb or mutton sausages. Beef, yes. Venison, occasionally.

After the news was broken by the Daily Mail yesterday that the primary school where he was raised was to send him for slaughter, supporters have flocked to his cause.

(Do click that link for the picture of the parents, and remember to save a copy in case any of them apply for a job in your firm. It really is a picture worth a thousand words.)

The story at least makes it clear that the parents' complaints were met in full; it's just that ultimately, they were wrong and the headmistress was right to dismiss their protest as they obviously could not be bothered to understand what the farm was for in the first place. It never was a petting zoo, it never was about pets.

the protesters emerged grim-faced from a meeting with headmistress Andrea Charman who believes sending the lamb to the slaughter gives children a lesson in how their food gets to the table. 'Since the lamb arrived, it has always been made clear in a tactful and factual way that lambs are meat,' Mrs Charman said in a statement issued by the school.

The comments under the story at least make it clear that the Mail was on the wrong track from the very beginning.

By all accounts, Andrea Charman was an exemplary headmistress of Lydd Primary School, and her initiative in this essentially rural area to set up a school farm was another demonstration of her commitment to innovation in education.

Yet she has now had to resign, hounded out by the disgraceful bullying of so called animal rights campaigners after a lamb from the farm was sent to the abattoir to provide food for the children and their parents.

This paper is against animal cruelty, but we worry about the growing number of well intentioned Britons who, by sentimentalising animals, have lost touch with the process by which food arrives on the table.

Once again, a vocal minority has won a victory over common sense.

Quite. Grab a copy of their September story before they set about re-writing history, the one where they failed to investigate the story properly in the first place.

Saturdays Mail:-Natalie Taylor, 36, has two children at Lydd Primary. She is a vegetarian, but says she found the ethics behind Mrs Charman's farm 'laudable'.

'Children need to know where their food comes from, and they need to learn that it doesn't just appear from nowhere, wrapped on a supermarket shelf,' she says.

'The abuse, threats and harassment that Andrea has suffered are disgusting. This has given a soapbox to a handful of parents whose views are totally out of proportion.

'Suggestions that we've been left with a school full of traumatized children are wide of the mark. In fact, we now have a school with children who are very unhappy that they are losing a headmistress who has done so much for them. I find the way she has been bullied and victimized atrocious.'

This is me, our school has lost a much respected head because of the idiotic attention seeking tantrums of a few.

It amazes me that they have been allowed to carry out their hate campaign as some of the threats have been particularly vile.

Sympathy has to go to the children raised by such ill informed idiots.

@ Bill Sticker.. Hi Bill there were a lot of parents who stood up for Andrea as did the Governing Body and KCC... Unfortunately the press were not interested then, I guess a school with a loved farm project, happy children and parents and staff who support the Head just doesn't make good news. They are taking an interest in the truth now but its to little to late.

I've spent years writing articles on situations just like this one and I have to say that I've never seen such a lot of rubbish printed in all my life. So called 'facts' keep on changing and nothing much is being reported other than stories of angry townspeople baying for blood, whether it be that of the headmistress or gobby parents that nobody likes.

You are right Bill. It would appear that, when the press were outside the school, parents who wanted the lamb killed made fun of those who were upset by it and left them to say what they wanted. How could they not see the bad things that were written on facebook? Only a couple of locals spoke up for Mrs Charman. Judging by very recent comments I have read on facebook, this new aggressive show of support is because of the personal dislike of the people who started the campaign and 'outsiders' in general. Mrs Charman is just a pawn in it all. All that's happening is that she's being pushed back in front of the media glare with no thought of how much continued pressure it will place upon her. This long overdue show of support comes far too late to be genuine or effective and is for the wrong reasons. This headmistress should have been given help months ago. This is a perfect example of small town politics where the majority rules and the reason why towns like Lydd will never move forward and will continue to be given bad press time and time again.

The idea that a few children in the school decided out of nowhere to start up a farm is so far from the truth. According to one of the 'supportive' governors, Mrs Charman's son needed to put a farming project into place as part of his agriculture qualification. The children were persuaded that a farm would be a good idea and given the option of sending one of the sheep to slaughter. Mrs Charman's son was responsible for the sheep and not the school. It's a great shame that having a farm on every school seems to be the only way to educate children on the subject of the meat industry. Things must have changed since I was a child. Bizarrely, I know exactly where meat comes from and so do my wife and children. If this school has previously been without a farm for years and years, how on earth do the inhabitants of Lydd know where their meat comes from? I guess they've only just found out!

What does Michael Howard know about it? Only what he's been told and decided to make public. He has known for months about the problems Mrs Charman was facing and admitted receiving complaints himself. All of a sudden, she has resigned and he wants to make his feelings known. Again, it's too late and, if there has been so much support from the governing body and the parents from the beginning, why did Mrs Charman feel the need to resign? This small amount of objection to the farm surely would have been stomped out long ago if this support was real. Why is it now that 'Andrea', as parents are now all of a sudden affectionately calling her, is being supported by an angry mob who seem more interested in driving other parents who don't agree with their views out of Lydd.

Yes, all children should know where the meat for their dinner comes from and regular trips to REAL farms where REAL farming happens is the best way to show them the REALITY of farming. Three sheep enclosed in a small pen, scratching around on concrete with nowhere to run and frolick, isn't really the right way to explain it. Farms are set up to care for animals and schools are set up to care for children.

I will continue to keep my eye on this story but hope it peters out very soon. It has become a rather unwanted hobby of mine, but one I can't seem to shake! I also hope that Andrea Charman finds a nice position as head at a new school where she will be treated as a headmistress should be treated. If I was her, I would run as fast as I could from Lydd and never look back!